


Living

by Nebulad



Series: Eternalism [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: "Hunting The Archon" spoilers, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Other, nb ryder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: “It’s three in the morning,” Eden pointed out, moving inside and locking the door behind her. Storage was generally considered Liam’s space, but it was still storage and who knew what Vetra had hidden in here? The moment would be ruined if Peebee shuffled in, looking for cereal.“Thanks Big Ben.” He grinned as she sat down, curling herself up beside him. He offered her the quilt he had meticulously ruffled to make it look like he was using it, throwing his arm around her shoulders.She hadn’t meant to snort, but she did. “Why are you awake?”“Who said I was awake?”





	

After the fourth time she jerked awake from a dead sleep, feeling like she was suffocating, Eden begrudgingly conceded that maybe Lexi was right and _dying_ was a very bad battle strategy. Unfortunately it’d taken two sleep-deprived _weeks_ to come to this conclusion; not like she’d _denied_ it— it’d hurt _,_ for one, and it’d been scary at the time and now possibly post-resurrection. It’d saved their lives though, and if she had to choose between dying and being the literal vessel through which the Kett perfected human exaltation?

All right, that wasn’t helping the mild panic attack.

“Pathfinder?” She wondered if SAM could feel guilt. Not that she _wanted_ him to, but he’d read just a _tad_ defensive ever since the crew had confronted them both about the maneuver. Most seemed to blame SAM for suggesting it, but to be fair they seemed hesitant to scold her considering she’d been dead for a few seconds.

“I’m all right.” Well, he would _know_ she wasn’t but… he was kind of her and Silas’... little genderless robot sibling that their dad had programmed. She might have chosen a _drastically_ different way of having him be a part of her, but Alec had apparently known best. Now all she could do was try to reassure him despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

“You are not. If you are interested, Liam is also awake.” She turned and frowned at her clock— it was like, three in the morning on what passed as a Tuesday in the middle of a nonlinear, timeless expanse of space. As if he’d read her mind— and possibly having literally read her mind through brain impulses or something— SAM responded. “He is doing push-ups.”

 _Push-ups_ Liam was not a happy Liam, so she shoved the blankets off her. She was hit with such a sudden and visceral relief of burden— like she’d been drowning under the weight of her quilt— that she had to take a second to catch her breath in the ship’s meticulously controlled and not _quite_ chilly air. Deciding against spending more time trying to get dressed (she could _hear_ Drack snoring and so wasn’t really concerned about getting caught in her pyjak jammie shorts), she threw on some socks and shuffled out into the dimmed lower deck.

He obviously wasn’t in the bunk like everyone was supposed to be, but to be fair he had a couch that he seemed to make regular use of even without the possible crisis. Even Gil was asleep as she passed the Nomad— or maybe just working away in the dark so no one would bother him— and unsurprisingly, when she got to storage, the door was locked. “Kosta?” she whispered, feeling loud. She heard a thump and then nothing: he was holding still until she went away. “I have an AI and a scanner Liam, I know you’re in there.”

The door slid open after another minute. He was sitting on his couch casually, staring at nothing because his screen was just playing an Initiative slideshow. “What’s up, Ryder?” he asked, his feet on the table in front of him. The picture of calm.

“It’s three in the morning,” she pointed out, moving inside and locking the door behind her. Storage was generally considered Liam’s space, but it was still storage and who knew what Vetra had hidden in here? The moment would be ruined if Peebee shuffled in, looking for cereal.

“Thanks Big Ben.” He grinned as she sat down, curling herself up beside him. He offered her the quilt he had meticulously ruffled to make it look like he was using it, throwing his arm around her shoulders.

She hadn’t _meant_ to snort, but she did. “Why are you awake?”

“Who said I was awake?”

“The AI in my head, smart guy.”

“And what are you? Sleepwalking?” He pressed his cheek to her head, one hand absently toying with the absolute mess that night terrors had made of her hair. She’d jammed it all back under a cloth headband when she’d gone to bed, so she looked mildly ridiculous. It was never an issue with him.

“I didn’t ask about _me.”_

“ _I_ did. You’ve kinda been through a lot lately, and I want you to know I’m here if you wanna… you know, talk. I told you about the person I worked with, the one who got back into the field too soon?” He’d sent her about an email a day ever since they’d escaped the Kett ship, actually. She retrospectively kicked herself for not realising something was up with him sooner.

“Liam, is something wrong?” No way he could talk his way around a direct question.

“It’s not about me, Edi.” Scratch that.

“I feel like it really is, because I’m doing great.” A lie, but maybe it would make him feel better. Calm him down enough that he would unwind and tell her what was bothering him, and how it possibly pertained to her multiple deaths.

“So what, your spidey-senses started tingling when I got up?” It was a joke, but his body language stiffened considerably. He wasn’t deflective, per say, but he when he really got going he seemed to take a significant backseat to literally everyone else in the galaxy. _It isn’t about me. You’re the important one, what do you think? Gotta keep Ryder safe, she’s the Pathfinder._ It was to the point now that she was pretty sure he was responding to crises that just hadn’t happened yet, trying to anticipate every problem they had so he could fix the galaxy before it broke.

She moved, shuffling out of the warmth of the quilt to sit on him. She looked at him— _really_ looked at him, noting how tired his eyes were and how he seemed to compulsively reach out to hold her in a way that was a _little_ too desperate to write off as regular boyfriend shenanigans. She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t have a joke to make and that was pretty much all her conversational skills out the window. The only thing that came to mind was to ask him _again_ if anything was wrong, but it seemed redundant so she just… looked at him.

He finally made a noise that sounded like defeat. “If I were a criminal you would make a _really_ good detective,” he groused, breaking eye contact first to stare down at the arm of the couch. “Just give me that look and suddenly I’m spilling my guts— fine. I just want you to know that I feel like an asshole saying this.” His eyes flashed back up to hers and she relented a little to make the situation less tense. She shifted back down beside him, curling up under the quilt and spreading it out over his legs too. “I don’t think I’m… okay, after watching you die.”

“You think? It was a little fucked up.” That he felt _selfish_ of all things by being fucked up about watching her do some weird murder/suicide combo and then get back up was... confusing. And troubling because he’d been hanging onto this without saying anything for a _long time._

“I thought you said you were okay?”

“Focus, Liam, we’re talking about you now. Why would you feel like an asshole for that?”

“Because you were _dead_ and you did it to try and save _us._ And you got your neck stabbed and he grabbed your throat and…” He shook his head and averted his eyes and she _swore_ for a second that he was getting weepy. “All I could do was hang there and try to keep calm, you know? Like I couldn’t _do_ anything, and the Archon didn’t care about me or Peebs. He wanted to hurt _you_ and it’s always _you.”_

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she teased weakly.

“It’s not a joke Edi. I’ve watched you die _twice_ and just… what if it actually takes one of these times?” He looked down at her with a face that could only be made by a person who’d been kept awake by anxiety for two weeks; someone who, at three in the morning on the fifteenth night, could no longer guarantee rationality.

“You want the Pathfinder answer, or the sad one?” She wished they were sitting more comfortably, but at this point she couldn’t adjust them. He was too wired to start shuffling around, and even if he wasn’t she didn’t want to spend all night on a couch when she had a perfectly good bed waiting for her. Even if it did feel like it was killing her sometimes.

“Sad, I guess. If it’s truer.” He didn’t look happy about it, but that was why it wasn’t called the _happy_ answer. Not much about Andromeda so far had really warranted a happy answer.

“It is.” She turned and took his hands, squeezing them tightly. “The sad answer is that I can’t really promise you that I’m immortal. I’m not. And maybe one day my luck will run out and you’ll be hauling my corpse away from Kett—”

“Don’t _say_ shit like that.” He tried to take his hands back but she kept them.

“But I’ll make it up to you.”

“Really, Ryder?” He didn’t sound confident, but she nodded anyway.

“Yep.”

“You’re going to make up _dying_ to me?”

“Sure am, Kosta.” He was looking less miserable and so she put special effort into looking playful despite the exhaustion. Bed was looking really nice, even if she only slept in fits.

“I’ll bite. How you gunna pull that one off?”

She briefly mourned the fact that the spiel would be better delivered on his lap or something, but stayed in place. Moving felt like a lot of fucking work, which meant that once again, Lexi was right and sleep was important. “I’ll make it up to you by _living,_ Liam. Time isn’t real, but whatever singular moments I have left between now and however I end up actually biting it are up for dibs.” It was a weird _early_ morning cross between cheesy and genuine, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to play it all off as a joke later, but she sort of _meant_ it. There was just… nothing she could do besides be alive with him for as long as she could, and she was ready to do that.

His face transitioned rapidly between about five different emotions, and she _definitely_ saw his eyes well up this time. He laughed— the quiet, breathy snicker that was usually reserved for jokes in Kett territory— and suddenly moving was no longer optional. He pulled her over and squeezed her against his chest, his mouth pressing against her head. “Three in the morning was not a dignified time to have this conversation,” he said without eye contact. His voice shook a little, but she could hear him smiling _(and_ feel it, which was better).

“I won’t tell a soul if we can sleep in _my_ bed tonight.” For what was _left_ of tonight.

“This just keeps getting better.” He let her go and wiped at his face, standing up and bringing his quilt with him. That might’ve been a good idea— she could avoid the drowning blankets entirely, and maybe that would help her sleep all the way through the night. She followed him, taking his hand to lead him past the Nomad like he didn’t know where he was going. “Love the shorts, by the way,” he added in a stage whisper.

“If we’re gunna work out, Kosta, I’m gunna need you to develop a love for Perry the Pyjak.” He’d damn well known what he was getting into, in fairness. Most of their time on Habitat 7 had been spent on her scanner, creating records for SAM to look over.

“On it. Glycine, valine, leucine, iso— isoleu… something that ends with _ine._ ” She snorted, slapping her hands over her mouth like it would retroactively muffle it so the crew didn’t hear. Luckily, Drack was still snoring.

“We’ll work on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) and hot reminder all my characters, regardless of pronouns, are NB (except the ones who are trans). Kind of have to tag them one way or another, since Archive doesn't give me any fucking options for NB Ryder. Sometimes I tag both f/m and m/m but considering what a fucking shitshow Andromeda was for the mlm community I'm not going to do that. I mean I will, but only when writing for my NB mlm Silas and Atlas (Reyes and Gil ships respectively).
> 
> Anyway Eden is a fun loving Adept Biotic who wears Heleus Defender Armour and uses a Remnant Assault Rifle. My first move for pretty much all my ships atm is to write a fucking reaction to their death on the Archon's ship because _wow_ did someone ever drop the ball on that one.


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